The Final Update: A Look Back and A Look Ahead

ELECTION POSTMORTEM

A full day has come and gone as the nation and the world comes to grips with the fact that, yes, the United States really did elect Donald Trump to become our 45th President. To say it has taken some a bit longer to process this than others would be a bit of an understatement.

Certainly, there are just as many people upset with the results as are applauding it, simply evidenced by the fact that Clinton actually won the popular vote, albeit by just 230,053 votes out of 119,616,001 cast. Which brings up an interesting statistical note that Democrats have now won the popular vote in six of the last seven elections, but only took the White House in four of those campaigns.

One change from Wednesday's update is the final electoral count has been adjusted to Trump winning 306 to 232, as New Hampshire ended up going to Clinton after all, as did the senatorial race going to Democrat Maggie Hassan over Republican Kelly Ayotte. The results were absolutely razor thin and may still be subject to a recount, but as of this time, the Democrats will hold 48 seats in the Senate, giving them enough votes (with the independents) to filibuster, but not enough (obviously) to pass any of their own agrenda.

And now that the election is (finally!) over, it's time to take a deep breath, sit back, maybe stretch a bit, and wait to see what's going to happen next. The one bit of advice I can give everyone is to never assume you can predict with President Trump will do. He's proven that time and time again during the primaries and the general election that he is not bound by convention or doing things "the way they've always been done."

He is his own man who has proven time and again that his way of doing things works, and considering he is about to accede to the highest office in the land, who is to say his method doesn't work. Certainly not Trump himself. He has often said his best advisor is himself, and in a career that has seen him succeed far more often than fail, even his most ardent critics have to admit he has accomplished a lot following that self-advice.

President Trump has many challenges and obstacles ahead of him. I could list them all, but there are plenty of other news and political sites out there that have dozens of reporters writing tens of thousands of words on the same thing, so I'll let the professionals do their thing.

For me, though, I will point out one thing to all those who worry about the future of the country moving forward: the Republic will stand. It has stood for 238 years, though a horrific civil war, two world wars, countless economic upheavals, presidents both great and small, honest and corrupt. It has risen to every challenge, every attack, and achieved greatness that has never been equaled in the history of the world.

We have tamed a continent, brought peace and prosperity to much of the world, lead the way in science, industry and the arts, and have inspired generations with our hope for a better life and a better future. And while we still have many problems and many challenges, we have the strength as a nation built over the past two centuries to believe we can rise to any occasion and succeed.

Take solace and take hope in our history, in our great culture, in our citizens who have embraced the ideals of freedom and independence, and rest assured that no matter what, the Republic will stand,

POLLING POSTMORTEM

There has been a lot written and postulated in the past day over "what went wrong?" with the polling, which obviously completely missed the boat when it came to predicting the election results. There are many theories: voters lied to pollsters either out of shame or distrust of the pollster, there were a lot of "hidden" voters, and FBI Director Comey's letter affected a lot of early voters, are among the three I've seen most often. Combined with the modern challenge of even getting people to respond (landlines are disappearing and internet polling is not a reliable replacement at this time), these all seem to be reasonable excuses.

But I disagree.

It's not that I think there aren't elements of those three theories at play, it's that I think the polling industry is trying to point to everyone other than themselves for missing the boat. I mentioned yesterday that when I broke down where the polls were mostly accurate vs where they were badly off, it was quite noticeable that the red states were the ones who way overperformed more often than not. And to me, the reason for that is simple and a problem endemic to the polling method itself: the concept of the "likely voter".

Pollsters want to be certain that the people who say they are voting for candidate "A" are actually going to do so. So they structure their questions to gauge how likely that voter will actually follow through. These questions are based on things like "did you vote in the primary" and "are you registered with the political party" and most importantly "how often have you voted in the past". The answers to these questions give a pollster a good feel for whether candidate "A" will actually get the promised vote. And thus, polls are weighted to give the more likely voters higher statistical strength in the polling model.

And this is where the polling model failed this year. Donald Trump was not a conventional candidate, nor was his support made up of conventional voters. And this isn't even hindsight speaking; this has been known since the day he made the announcement he was running for office. One had to only look at the turnout in the primaries, where Trump brought in tens of thousands of new voters to the polls in every state to see evidence of a growing surge in newcomers to the voting booth. But because there were new voters, many of whom weren't registered with a party, they didn't score high at all in the likely voter model. The simple fact that those voters, obviously, did show up at the polls and voted is where the polls failed.

So what's the fix? Pollsters will need to continue to build more reliable methods of reaching voters (online groups like YouGov seem to be growing in reliability and accuracy, which is a good direction to take), and at the same time will need to take a long hard look at their modeling, especially how they weight likely voters.

And maybe, just maybe, the media could stop relying solely on voter polls and maybe, just maybe, use some actual political science modeling, which was far more accurate in predicting the current outcome than the voter preference polls.

But since I happen to have a degree in political science, maybe I'm not as unbiased an observer as others. Or maybe we in the polisci world just need to do a better job of making our papers and reports flashier and easier for the low-attention-span "oh shiny!" mass media to understand.

FINAL RESULTS

Here's the final adjusted chart of my polling projections, the actual results, and the difference between the two, broken down in categories based on how accurate the projections ended up being.

Good Call	Projected		Actual		Change
New York	DEM	21.9	DEM	21.3	- 0.6
Oregon	DEM	11.2	DEM	10.6	- 0.6
Connecticut	DEM	13	DEM	12.2	- 0.8
New Jersey	DEM	13.7	DEM	12.2	- 0.9
Montana	GOP	19.4	GOP	20.5	+ 1.1
Nevada	DEM	1.3	DEM	2.4	+ 1.1
Colorado	DEM	3.5	DEM	2.1	- 1.4
Illinois	DEM	14.6	DEM	16	+ 1.4
Delaware	DEM	13	DEM	11.5	- 1.5
Virginia	DEM	6.4	DEM	4.9	- 1.5
Washington	DEM	16	DEM	17.5	- 1.5
Rhode Island	DEM	12.8	DEM	14.6	+ 1.8
Florida	DEM	0.5	GOP	1.3	+ 1.8
Texas	GOP	7.2	GOP	9.2	+ 2
Vermont	DEM	30.5	DEM	28.5	- 2
Pretty Close
Georgia	GOP	3.2	GOP	5.7	+ 2.5
California	DEM	25.3	DEM	28.2	+ 2.9
Arizona	GOP	1.5	GOP	4.3	+ 2.8
Michigan	DEM	2.5	GOP	0.3	+ 2.8
Pennsylvania	DEM	2.7	GOP	1.2	+ 3.9
Massachusetts	DEM	23.3	DEM	27.3	+ 4
Missed A Bit
Indiana	GOP	15.1	GOP	19.3	+ 4.2
Wisconsin	DEM	3.2	GOP	1	+ 4.2
Maryland	DEM	29.5	DEM	25.2	- 4.3
New Mexico	DEM	3.7	DEM	8.3	+ 4.6
Iowa	GOP	4.7	GOP	9.6	+ 4.9
Alaska	GOP	10.1	GOP	15.2	+ 5.1
Louisiana	GOP	14.2	GOP	19.7	- 5.5
Ohio	GOP	2.3	GOP	8.6	+ 6.3
Kansas	GOP	14.6	GOP	21	+ 6.4
Minnesota	DEM	7.9	DEM	1.4	- 6.5
Arkansas	GOP	19.7	GOP	26.6	+ 6.9
North Carolina	DEM	3.1	GOP	3.8	+ 6.9
Missed A Lot
Mississippi	GOP	10.9	GOP	18.5	+ 7.6
New Hampshire	DEM	7.7	DEM	0.1	- 7.6
South Dakota	GOP	21.4	GOP	29.8	+ 8.4
D.C.	DEM	80.2	DEM	88.7	+ 8.5
Nebraska	GOP	17.7	GOP	26.3	+ 8.6
South Carolina	GOP	4.9	GOP	14.1	+ 9.2
Hawaii	DEM	22.5	DEM	32.2	+ 9.7
Kentucky	GOP	19.7	GOP	29.8	+ 10.1
Nebraska	GOP	16.1	GOP	26.3	+ 10.2
Alabama	GOP	18	GOP	28.3	+ 10.3
Oklahoma	GOP	26.1	GOP	36.4	+ 10.3
Not Even Close
Missouri	GOP	8	GOP	19.1	+ 11.1
North Dakota	GOP	25	GOP	36.3	+ 11.3
Idaho	GOP	19.1	GOP	31.6	+ 12.5
Wyoming	GOP	35.1	GOP	47.6	+ 12.5
Utah	GOP	6.3	GOP	19	+ 12.7
West Virginia	GOP	27.6	GOP	42.2	+ 14.6
Tennessee	GOP	10.1	GOP	26.2	+ 16.1